'American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD)'
Abstract
Mestrado em Engenharia do Ambiente - Instituto Superior de AgronomiaMicroplastics (MPs) are a contaminant which due to its ubiquitous nature is spread all over the world, reaching all the ecosystems and remote places. Since it’s a recent topic in the scientific community and its elimination is still a challenge, it’s important to access its concentration worldwide and monitoring. Some countries don’t have or have scarce data about it. Argentina, which comprises a long Atlantic coast and manages one of the major estuaries of South America is highly susceptible to release and transport MPs, but its concentration hasn’t been broadly studied yet.
This thesis aims to contribute to filling the existent knowledge gap by presenting two case studies: one representing a sink for Potential Microplastics (PMPs), three beaches from Villa Gesell (Great Buenos Aires); and a source, a communitarian Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in the Great Buenos Aires area, to understand the transport of PMPs to the environment. PMPs were quantified and classified optically by its shape and colour.
In Villa Gesell, PMPs were investigated in three different beaches with different anthropogenic loads, ranging from 46.0±34.8 (SD) to 86.2±66.1 PMPs.Kg-1 dry sand. No relation was observed between the amount of PMPs with anthropogenic load, wracklines, sand-size grain, and organic content.
In WWTP, the concentration of PMPs in the influent was 12587±3073 PMPs.L-1 and it’s suggested that lagoon system and secondary settler could remove PMPs. However, still releases to the aquatic ecosystem an amount of 9.1x109 PMPs.day-1. Since the PMPs were not eliminated, they remained in the sludge, reaching an amount of 2.7x105±2.9x105 PMPs.kg-1 of dry sludge.
The results from this thesis show the importance of assessing PMPs to understand the dimension of the contamination, bring awareness on this problem that can have serious consequences to the biota, and motivate the development of strategies to eliminate this contaminantN/
